Virtualization

There's a real battle in the virtualization market as VMware positions itself as cloud computing's operating system. Meanwhile, Microsoft is gaining traction and players like Citrix and Red Hat are also a threat. Virtualization's main selling point - the ability to use more computing capacity and save on servers - resonates for obvious reasons.

Hyperconverged vendor releases its own Acropolis hypervisor and Prism management tool, but analysts say low awareness of the Nutanix brand in Asia-Pacific will prove a barrier against the more established VMware footprint.

Want to run your favorite Android apps on your Windows desktop, laptop, tablet or 2-in-1 system? American Megatrends - yes, that same company you've been seeing on PC BIOS screens since the 1980s - has a utility for you.

Manufacturers have little incentive to invest in security when some web-connected devices sell for less than $50 each, suggesting that mandatory compliance may be necessary to protect consumer interest.

This will be my first in a series (an "X = X +1" sort of series) where I'll be looking at virtualization. However, rather than look at the kind of virtualization where you inxstall and OS like Windows, Mac OS or Linux and then install an application that allows you to create virtual machines, I'm going to be looking at virtualization at a much lower level using VMware's ESX 3.5 and Infrastructure applications. I'm going to start off by looking at VMware ESX and taking you through the install process.

VMware released a free player that allows you to run virtual machines created by VMware Workstation, GSX, and ESX Server as well as Microsoft virtual machines and Symantec LiveState Recovery disk formats. You can download the free VMware Player and a pre-built Browser Appliance loaded with Ubuntu and Firefox. Steven Warren walks you through the VMware Player installation and use with these screenshots. You can read more about Steven's experience with VMware Player in his The Hot Button blog.

At the VMworld conference in San Francisco, ZDNet Senior Editor Sam Diaz tours the exhibition floor to see what is happening at the show. Diaz also talks to David Bricker of IBM about the company's XIV substorage system, which works in the VMware environment, and to Tripwire's Michael Reznick about how the company's software helps IT managers audit and control their systems inside a data center.

At VMworld in San Francisco, VMware CTO Stephen Herrod shows a Visa mobile application on a Microsoft Windows CE device that is also running virtually on Google's Android OS. The functionality allows users to run "any app on any device," the VMware executive says.

At VMworld 2009 in San Francisco, Ann Livermore, executive vice president of HP's services organization, announces two new virtualization solutions that will give system administrators the ability to better virtualize and converge their entire IT infrastructure by enabling access of virtual and physical assets inside the environment.

At VMworld 2009 in San Francisco, Doug Fisher, Intel's VP of software and services, talks about experimental work VMware and Intel are collaborating on to reduce overall power consumption inside Nehalem EX.

At VMworld in San Francisco, VMware CEO Paul Maritz talks to HP's director of software virtualization, Steve DuPree, about how the company's VMware View product fits into HP's virtualization plans. Maritz adds that there are 1 million desktops deployed with VDI, mainly in sectors where security and compliance are crucial, like the health care and finance industry.

Lew Tucker, vice president and chief technology officer of cloud computing at Sun Microsystems, foresees applications that are entirely self-sufficient. Humans will be able to set boundaries, of course, but will no longer be needed to turn servers, or anything else for that matter, physically on or off. It is important, he says, that these applications be unified and driven by a compatible set of protocols in order to create a global cloud of clouds.

At the OpenSource World event in San Francisco, Lew Tucker, vice president and CTO of cloud computing at Sun Microsystems, explained that many developing countries are skipping over acquiring their own servers and going right to the cloud. Because of the cost effectiveness, the move may spur their economies and create jobs. This could also hold true for the U.S. government, currently creating its own cloud as well.

At the CloudWorld event in San Francisco, panelists question whether cloud computing, quickly gaining mainstream adoption, could replace system ownership entirely. Panelists include Joe Weinman of AT&T Business Solutions, Sam Charrington of Appistry, James Urquhart of Cisco Systems and the CNET Blog Network, and Timothy Chou of Ming Holdings.

At the Google I/O developer's conference in San Francisco, Calif., company CEO Eric Schmidt shares his vision for a new computing paradigm. In his keynote, Schmidt says "this is the beginning of the real win of cloud computing, of applications."

At the Interop Conference in Las Vegas, VMWare CTO Stephen Herrod explains what the additional features in the company's network switching distribution will bring to virtualization. One of the benefits will be allowing other companies, like Cisco, to create a virtual switch within VMWare's cloud so that businesses can choose whoever they want to handle their networking. Rob Noth of VMWare demonstrates the Cisco command line.

Just about any task involving multiple operating systems on a single computer can be accomplished using VMware Workstation 5, which adds valuable new features and also delivers performance enhancements.

VMware Workstation is a powerful virtual machine application that enables you to develop and test even the most complex networked server-class applications running on Windows, Linux or NetWare -- all on a single desktop.